I wouldn't say "for anything other than gaming". For example, if you're doing software development and testing on your own system, you may (depending on what the software is) want to have a decent chunk of memory, which might even require a motherboard upgrade from what GP's system has.
The really scary part is the little conspiracy theorist voice in my head is telling me this was the plan all along. [...] let's squeeze the working classes so many of their sons and daughters are enlisted. Next comes Support The Troops. If you don't Support The Troops, you're a terrorist.
I watched Swing Kids last night for the first time. I have to say I was a little frightened by the number of analogies came to my head comparing what was portrayed in the movie to the situation now in the US. I'm not saying things are to that extreme of course, but I saw similar trends.
One of those trends I saw was exactly what you described; in the movie, people were forced to join the HJ, but once there the training/propaganda/peer pressure would many times foster agreement with the current administration. And I couldn't help but think about how many college kids (one of the most likely age demographics to protest a war, I believe) are being persuaded/forced into the military via economic incentives/pressure (I have heard, but haven't verified, that federal funding of higher education has gone down over the past 6 years).
Whether intentional or not, the result is an effective way of disseminating propaganda to one of the demographics most likely to dissent. Then, when they go to school on government dime, it probably has a subtle effect on some of the other likely dissidents around them. Again, I'm not necessarily saying this was the intent, or that it was the only intent, but I can't help thinking that at a minimum it was "icing on the cake".
Well damn. I guess that's another example of when "common knowledge" is wrong. And the worst part is that I've been perpetuating it in the "Introduction to Computing" course I teach (which is why I had that textbook on hand).
> Have I not been bitching in these very pages, for years and years, about the magnet people driving me nuts?
You sound like you have a chronic anger problem. I heard about something you might want to try, it works like a charm -- it's this cool little necklace that has 3 magnets in it, arranged just so...
I thought that was common knowledge that they wanted to allow sharing of resources in a failure-tolerant way -- after all they didn't want to become reliant on a communication and collaboration technology that could be easily disrupted in wartime. That's just common sense.
One objective of the ARPANET project was to create a computer network that would allow researchers located in different places to communicate with each other. Another objective was to build a computer network capable of sending data over a variety of paths to ensure that network communications could continue even if part of the network was destroyed, such as in a nuclear attack or by a natural disaster.
You seem to be awfully sure about what your fish are thinking. Why couldn't it be a Pavlovian response to your visual presence paired with the light being on? Not just anyone's presence, but yours in particular?
Read about Little Albert, an early Pavlovian conditioning experiment. Granted, that was with a human child, but still, there's no reason I see to assume this is anything more than association and conditioning. Assuming it is true memory as we think of it requires quite a leap.
Now the problem with this approach is that RGB display equipment usually works by emitting the primary colors side by side, [...]. This results in some inherent color bleeding that this new technique will resolve.
Actually, I don't think that's the problem. Consider, for example, a 3-color projection system. That is, say I have 3 projectors, and each projects a different color of light: red, green, and blue. If I use shades-of-grey transparencies on those projectors to create 3 appropriate single-color images, and then project them onto the same place on the wall, you will see a full-color image in much the same way you see a full-color image from an RGB-pixel display. But, the colors are not being emitted side-by-side, so there will be no color bleeding such as you describe (if I'm using an infinite-quality projector with infinite-quality transparencies). However, I think the new system being described would be able to display colors more accurately than either 3-color system -- it is the use of 3 colors of light which causes the issues, not the method of displaying those 3 colors.
Consider the fact that we can create apparent full-color images based on only 2 colors of light. From my link (emphasis mine):
[Edwin Land] engineered a method of illuminating images with very narrow bands of the spectrum, and investigated the possibilities of creating full-color images with a variety of color environments. He was ultimately able to create full-color images with only light of 579 nanometers and 599 nanometers wavelength. We normally perceive those two specimens of light as being yellow, and almost identical in color, but two-color images viewed with those colors of light can produce the perception of reds, greens and blues. The two-color images lack a full range of values and chromas, but they do reproduce all hues.
I think even with 3 colors we have the same problem, whether we're using pixel or projection technology. We can get all possible hues (just as you can with only 2 colors), but some colors may not be as vibrant as they could be, or they may be a little washed-out. The advantage (with regard to color accuracy) of this new system is not that it doesn't have different-colored pixels side-by-side, but that we can directly produce many hues, which can allow some hues to be displayed with a wider range of variation than we can approximate with 3 colors.
Now, why live CD if not for maintenance ? Atleast in this situation thats the whole idea, removal of malicious software.
I think you missed the point -- I believe the idea of using a live CD was brought up as a suggestion for how you always run your system, not for how you perform maintenance on your system. Why, you ask? Because if the OS is on a CD in a non-writing CD-ROM drive, the OS can't be infected by malware, or at least only until the next time you reboot. In other words, the idea is that this sort of "maintenance" (removing malware) isn't really necessary if you are always running from a live CD, because you just need to reboot.
Now, with that said, I'm sure it's still possible to infect your system by writing to your networked files; maybe it wouldn't give root access automatically on reboot, but every time you execute a certain file. Unless you don't do any software developing, script writing, etc, or roll your CD on a very regular basis, then you'll still have executable files on a writable mount. I know that restriction makes intalling rootkits much harder, but I wouldn't want to claim it is impossible.
I think that was the point... As GP said, "the most important thing will not be to make sure that the government can't read what you communicate, but rather have no reason to suspect you're doing anything they don't like".
In other words, you'll (additionally) need to hide your communications, not just encrypt them. If the government doesn't know any of your encrypted traffic exists, or can't attribute it to you, then there would be no case for a visual tail, possibly excepting the "This person seems to have no additional traffic... that's impossible! Must be hiding it somehow. Put a visual tail on 'em." uber Big Brother possibility.
> There are easily a hundred companies in the world that could exploit such a technology if they knew of its existence.
And if they could convince the company to let them use the technology. You're forgetting the power of our wonderful IP laws -- get a patent, sit on it, and voila. No one else can do it.
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that I necessarily think this is the case. I honestly haven't looked into it. But you asked "Why would car companies supress innovations in vehicles?" -- I was merely giving you a possible answer.
No links, but I do still have the code. In fact, thinking about this has me finally motivated to make a couple subtle alterations I always thought would make it run better. If you're still interested in looking, send me an email at my gmail address (my nick is the prefix).
> Many biologically inspired algorithms solve problems through methods that cannot be proven correct (unlike, say, the mathematics circuitry in a CPU), but merely empirically observed to "do a good job."
I understand what you are saying. However, there are variations that can avoid this problem to some extent. For example, genetic programming, rather than genetic algorithms. The main difference is that where genetic algorithms are used directly to find a solution, genetic programming is used to create a program which finds a solution (the resulting program usually being neither biologically-inspired nor stochastic). In fact, since the result of genetic programming is an algorithm, if can be reverse-engineered to yield insights into the problem, thus possibly aiding other research.
I know this is a very "toy problem" example, but while I was an undergrad I wrote a genetic programming system to evolve a Reversi (also called "Othello") game-playing program. I'm by no means an expert Reversi player, so I set my goal at creating a program that could play better than I can without using techniques I can't use (for example, I only let it think 3 turns ahead, since it gets hard for me to see the possibilities much further than that). My system's output was a C function that, given a board state and a possible next move, would use an evolved set of rules to give a score to that move. The framework would call the function about all the possible moves (there were rarely more moves than would be noticed by a semi-experienced human), and choose the highest scoring move.
I succeeded in my goal -- it could consistently beat me, as well as my most intelligent friends, sometimes by a landslide. But the most interesting part to me was the fact that I could inspect the generated C code and take a look at how it was making its decisions. One of the more unexpected rules I found in the best-resulting programs favored letting the opponent take more pieces early in the game (definitely counter-intuitive, because the object of the game is to have more pieces than your opponent at the end). After some thought, and watching this rule in action over the course of a few games, I realized this made sense -- letting your opponent grab more pieces early in the game would limit their possible moves, while generally creating more options for yourself, increasing the possibility that you would be able to make important plays (like getting corner or side pieces), and then make an overwhelming comeback later in the game.
You got taken in by a logical fallacy -- I think ad hominem. If your argument to him was "you should have gotten something that has better gas mileage than the SUV you just bought", and his response was "yeah, well my SUV does better than your car does", then he really didn't address your point at all. The fact is, he probably made one of the least fuel-efficient choices possible for the price he paid (excluding expensive, old, collectible cars). And the choices you have made and your reasons for them don't change that a bit.
Granted, it sounds like he taught you something important -- newer technology has the capability of being more efficient, so perhaps you should consider buying new things for that reason. But, I bet if that's your reasoning, there will be many better choices than buying a brand new SUV.
You *can* get a degree in a field and then get certified on your own, but you can also get an undergraduate degree in one of many areas of education. Or a graduate degree (including PhD) in one of even more programs. There's an entire College of Education at the Univeristy of Kentucky. Ironic that you made such a big deal about how wrong GP was, huh?
I took a look at the University of Kentucky simply because that's where I am, but I'm sure it's the same many other places. Look for yourself.
There are a total of 18 undergraduate degrees offered by the College of Education, fully 2/3rds of which "lead to initial teacher certification", whatever that means. There are a total of 45 graduate degrees offered, some of which seem to be variations on the same thing based on your certification level, and some which are admittedly focussed on school administration rather than education, but I'm pretty sure at least half would be considered unique and education-based. Even if only 10% did, that would still prove your "there are only 2 degrees you can get in education" assumption wrong.
I don't usually get a kick out of proving people wrong, but I do when they make a big deal about rubbing someone else's face in the mud, especially when that other person was correct to begin with.
> go after military targets and treat prisoners as per the Geneva Convention
The Geneva Convention? Does anyone still read that old thing?
Again, I'm being humorous but making a serious point too -- how many countries actually follow the Geneva Convention when it's inconvenient? Certainly not the United States, and I'd doubt Israel does. True, that doesn't excuse the Palestinians, but on the other hand I wouldn't hold my breath for the vastly outgunned and routinely oppressed side to hold themselves to higher ethical standards than their enemies. Two wrongs don't make a right, but I think circumstances demand that the Israelis be the leaders in taking the dirtiness out of the situation.
For instance, look at what's happening right now -- the Palestinians actually did attack Israeli military for once, and took one prisoner/hostage. The Israeli response is not exactly encouraging. On the one hand, of course it's not -- they're responding to an attack. But on the other hand, if the retaliation is this intense every time they attack military targets, guess what, they'll keep attacking civilians. If, instead, Israel had released some prisoners (who aren't exactly getting the benefit of due process, and probably aren't being treated according to the Geneva Convention) in exchange, then that would encourage Palestinian extremists to try to take hostages rather than kill. This would be a great thing -- a suicide bomber can't take hostages. If Israel started being squeaky-clean in how they handle things, the Palestinians would lose my sympathy real fast.
Here's what I think the US and Europe and anyone else currently involved politically with that situation should do: First, give the Palestinian Authority all the money they would have gotten from us if we hadn't cut off aid when Hamas came into power, loan them the tax money Israel has been withholding (telling Israel to pay up to us, or else), and say "Ok, now you have the funding to get things done. No more excuses about how it's our fault because we didn't support you." Then, inform the Palestinian Authority and Israel that all aid will be cut off to both their countries in 6 months time unless they have both signed a treaty establishing a permanent border. Also, tell them that aid may be reduced or cut off early to either or both countries as a result of violence. In other words, "You've got enough time to figure this out, and no excuses about why you can't. Do it, or else." We've seen the dire straits the Palestinians are in without foreign aid, and Israel gets enough military aid from the US that it would seriously cramp their budget too. Wouldn't this have a better chance than the current situation? If the US and Europe just had the balls to be firm about demanding peace, I bet it would have an impact. If it didn't... would it really be any worse off? At the very least, the US would save some money.
Well, yes and no. If I'm attacking your civilians while you try to attack only me, that is definitely asymmetric. I guess you're saying you'd rather not dignify the killing of civilians by calling it warfare. I can respect that, but it doesn't mean the term is in no way applicable. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that two groups of people perpetrating violence against each other isn't warfare.
Although (tongue-in-cheek), if you really want to end the asymmetric warfare/terrorism in the Palestine-Israel conflict, it's not that hard. Just take all that military aid the US currently gives Israel, and give it to the Palestinian Authority instead. I think you'll find that they would stop suicide bombing small groups of civilians pretty quickly, and would start bombing Israeli government buildings. Kinda like how Israel bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry recently.
That's only a joke because the last thing we want to do is put more weapons into that situation. It's serious in the sense that the only reason the Palestinians use suicide bombs against civilians is that when faced with such incredible opposing military strength, there's not much else you can do except roll over and take it. That's why it's called "asymmetric warfare" -- it's caused by an incredible asymmetry in the strength of the opposing forces.
If I want to marry a person of the same sex, how does that affect you?
If affects me because marraige is a social institution, by definition. If you & your partner were isolated on an island, the concept of 'marriage' would be mute. Other people (aka society) interacting with you forms part of the definition of 'marriage'.
So, my answer is, of course you should be able to 'marry' any consenting adult, but you should not be able to force me to recognise your relationship as marriage.
Ok, I understand what you're saying -- I'd even say that seems to be a reasonable opinion, though I'm not sure that I entirely agree with it.
But there's a key aspect of this issue you don't mention -- would you agree that you should not be able to force me not to recognize a same-sex marriage (i.e. do you reject the bans on same-sex marriage)? If you truly support freedom of choice in this matter, it seems to me there would be times where you would need to support my right to recognize a same-sex marriage as long as I don't try to force everyone else to do it too.
In fact, it seems to me that from a neutral libertarian point of view, it should be at least as important to fight the bans on same-sex marriages as it is to fight laws and precendents forcing universal recognition of same-sex marriages. For one thing, there are more bans on same-sex marriages than there are laws supporting them, I'm fairly sure. For another, forced recognition and bans both affect an individual's interaction with the social institution of marriage equally (by legally eliminating the choice of how to respond to a same-sex couple claiming to be married), but the bans have additional, major effects on some people, for instance regarding health insurance. Since the bans seem to have taken more ground in the battle, and the bans have a greater impact, they seem to be the bigger danger.
You didn't mention anything about how others shouldn't be able to force me not to recognize same-sex marriages in your post, which honestly leaves me slightly suspicious as to whether you really do believe in unregulated freedom of choice in this matter or whether you just use that argument to support the fact that you don't want to recognize same-sex marriages. But, simply omitting that part of the issue doesn't necessarily mean anything, so maybe I'm not giving you enough credit. In any case, I'll agree to support your right not to recognize same-sex marriages as long as you agree to support my right to recognize them.
Of course, the semi-intelligent person realizes that with that many cameras, and with the staffing levels at places like Wal-Mart, they can't possibly be actively watching all the cameras, all the time
Which means they may not actually work very well for catching people in the act. However, as long as the video is recorded and saved for at least a couple days before being overwritten, it would be very feasible to search later (e.g. to provide evidence for prosecution or identification, once someone has been caught through some other means).
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't say "for anything other than gaming". For example, if you're doing software development and testing on your own system, you may (depending on what the software is) want to have a decent chunk of memory, which might even require a motherboard upgrade from what GP's system has.
One of those trends I saw was exactly what you described; in the movie, people were forced to join the HJ, but once there the training/propaganda/peer pressure would many times foster agreement with the current administration. And I couldn't help but think about how many college kids (one of the most likely age demographics to protest a war, I believe) are being persuaded/forced into the military via economic incentives/pressure (I have heard, but haven't verified, that federal funding of higher education has gone down over the past 6 years).
Whether intentional or not, the result is an effective way of disseminating propaganda to one of the demographics most likely to dissent. Then, when they go to school on government dime, it probably has a subtle effect on some of the other likely dissidents around them. Again, I'm not necessarily saying this was the intent, or that it was the only intent, but I can't help thinking that at a minimum it was "icing on the cake".
Well damn. I guess that's another example of when "common knowledge" is wrong. And the worst part is that I've been perpetuating it in the "Introduction to Computing" course I teach (which is why I had that textbook on hand).
> Have I not been bitching in these very pages, for years and years, about the magnet people driving me nuts?
You sound like you have a chronic anger problem. I heard about something you might want to try, it works like a charm -- it's this cool little necklace that has 3 magnets in it, arranged just so...
Since you demand a citation -- from the textbook Understanding Computers: Today & Tomorrow, 10th edition, by Charles S. Parker, page 365 (under Evolution of the Internet), emphasis mine: If you prefer an online source, take a look at this "Internet basics" site.
You seem to be awfully sure about what your fish are thinking. Why couldn't it be a Pavlovian response to your visual presence paired with the light being on? Not just anyone's presence, but yours in particular?
Read about Little Albert, an early Pavlovian conditioning experiment. Granted, that was with a human child, but still, there's no reason I see to assume this is anything more than association and conditioning. Assuming it is true memory as we think of it requires quite a leap.
Consider the fact that we can create apparent full-color images based on only 2 colors of light. From my link (emphasis mine): I think even with 3 colors we have the same problem, whether we're using pixel or projection technology. We can get all possible hues (just as you can with only 2 colors), but some colors may not be as vibrant as they could be, or they may be a little washed-out. The advantage (with regard to color accuracy) of this new system is not that it doesn't have different-colored pixels side-by-side, but that we can directly produce many hues, which can allow some hues to be displayed with a wider range of variation than we can approximate with 3 colors.
Now, with that said, I'm sure it's still possible to infect your system by writing to your networked files; maybe it wouldn't give root access automatically on reboot, but every time you execute a certain file. Unless you don't do any software developing, script writing, etc, or roll your CD on a very regular basis, then you'll still have executable files on a writable mount. I know that restriction makes intalling rootkits much harder, but I wouldn't want to claim it is impossible.
I think that was the point... As GP said, "the most important thing will not be to make sure that the government can't read what you communicate, but rather have no reason to suspect you're doing anything they don't like".
In other words, you'll (additionally) need to hide your communications, not just encrypt them. If the government doesn't know any of your encrypted traffic exists, or can't attribute it to you, then there would be no case for a visual tail, possibly excepting the "This person seems to have no additional traffic... that's impossible! Must be hiding it somehow. Put a visual tail on 'em." uber Big Brother possibility.
Third generation search engines are called Search 2.0? Ok, who put Sun in charge of vesion numbering?
> There are easily a hundred companies in the world that could exploit such a technology if they knew of its existence.
And if they could convince the company to let them use the technology. You're forgetting the power of our wonderful IP laws -- get a patent, sit on it, and voila. No one else can do it.
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that I necessarily think this is the case. I honestly haven't looked into it. But you asked "Why would car companies supress innovations in vehicles?" -- I was merely giving you a possible answer.
Maybe because the parent companies have a vested interest in oil?
But no, what am I talking about? No company would ever use their presence in one market to maintain profits in another!
No links, but I do still have the code. In fact, thinking about this has me finally motivated to make a couple subtle alterations I always thought would make it run better. If you're still interested in looking, send me an email at my gmail address (my nick is the prefix).
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
> Many biologically inspired algorithms solve problems through methods that cannot be proven correct (unlike, say, the mathematics circuitry in a CPU), but merely empirically observed to "do a good job."
I understand what you are saying. However, there are variations that can avoid this problem to some extent. For example, genetic programming, rather than genetic algorithms. The main difference is that where genetic algorithms are used directly to find a solution, genetic programming is used to create a program which finds a solution (the resulting program usually being neither biologically-inspired nor stochastic). In fact, since the result of genetic programming is an algorithm, if can be reverse-engineered to yield insights into the problem, thus possibly aiding other research.
I know this is a very "toy problem" example, but while I was an undergrad I wrote a genetic programming system to evolve a Reversi (also called "Othello") game-playing program. I'm by no means an expert Reversi player, so I set my goal at creating a program that could play better than I can without using techniques I can't use (for example, I only let it think 3 turns ahead, since it gets hard for me to see the possibilities much further than that). My system's output was a C function that, given a board state and a possible next move, would use an evolved set of rules to give a score to that move. The framework would call the function about all the possible moves (there were rarely more moves than would be noticed by a semi-experienced human), and choose the highest scoring move.
I succeeded in my goal -- it could consistently beat me, as well as my most intelligent friends, sometimes by a landslide. But the most interesting part to me was the fact that I could inspect the generated C code and take a look at how it was making its decisions. One of the more unexpected rules I found in the best-resulting programs favored letting the opponent take more pieces early in the game (definitely counter-intuitive, because the object of the game is to have more pieces than your opponent at the end). After some thought, and watching this rule in action over the course of a few games, I realized this made sense -- letting your opponent grab more pieces early in the game would limit their possible moves, while generally creating more options for yourself, increasing the possibility that you would be able to make important plays (like getting corner or side pieces), and then make an overwhelming comeback later in the game.
You got taken in by a logical fallacy -- I think ad hominem. If your argument to him was "you should have gotten something that has better gas mileage than the SUV you just bought", and his response was "yeah, well my SUV does better than your car does", then he really didn't address your point at all. The fact is, he probably made one of the least fuel-efficient choices possible for the price he paid (excluding expensive, old, collectible cars). And the choices you have made and your reasons for them don't change that a bit.
Granted, it sounds like he taught you something important -- newer technology has the capability of being more efficient, so perhaps you should consider buying new things for that reason. But, I bet if that's your reasoning, there will be many better choices than buying a brand new SUV.
> Halo 1,2 is king of the FPS games
So you're saying that Microsoft is going to buy up Google's enterprise search app and make it so it only works on Windows?
Dude, you're wrong.
You *can* get a degree in a field and then get certified on your own, but you can also get an undergraduate degree in one of many areas of education. Or a graduate degree (including PhD) in one of even more programs. There's an entire College of Education at the Univeristy of Kentucky. Ironic that you made such a big deal about how wrong GP was, huh?
I took a look at the University of Kentucky simply because that's where I am, but I'm sure it's the same many other places. Look for yourself.
There are a total of 18 undergraduate degrees offered by the College of Education, fully 2/3rds of which "lead to initial teacher certification", whatever that means. There are a total of 45 graduate degrees offered, some of which seem to be variations on the same thing based on your certification level, and some which are admittedly focussed on school administration rather than education, but I'm pretty sure at least half would be considered unique and education-based. Even if only 10% did, that would still prove your "there are only 2 degrees you can get in education" assumption wrong.
I don't usually get a kick out of proving people wrong, but I do when they make a big deal about rubbing someone else's face in the mud, especially when that other person was correct to begin with.
> go after military targets and treat prisoners as per the Geneva Convention
The Geneva Convention? Does anyone still read that old thing?
Again, I'm being humorous but making a serious point too -- how many countries actually follow the Geneva Convention when it's inconvenient? Certainly not the United States, and I'd doubt Israel does. True, that doesn't excuse the Palestinians, but on the other hand I wouldn't hold my breath for the vastly outgunned and routinely oppressed side to hold themselves to higher ethical standards than their enemies. Two wrongs don't make a right, but I think circumstances demand that the Israelis be the leaders in taking the dirtiness out of the situation.
For instance, look at what's happening right now -- the Palestinians actually did attack Israeli military for once, and took one prisoner/hostage. The Israeli response is not exactly encouraging. On the one hand, of course it's not -- they're responding to an attack. But on the other hand, if the retaliation is this intense every time they attack military targets, guess what, they'll keep attacking civilians. If, instead, Israel had released some prisoners (who aren't exactly getting the benefit of due process, and probably aren't being treated according to the Geneva Convention) in exchange, then that would encourage Palestinian extremists to try to take hostages rather than kill. This would be a great thing -- a suicide bomber can't take hostages. If Israel started being squeaky-clean in how they handle things, the Palestinians would lose my sympathy real fast.
Here's what I think the US and Europe and anyone else currently involved politically with that situation should do: First, give the Palestinian Authority all the money they would have gotten from us if we hadn't cut off aid when Hamas came into power, loan them the tax money Israel has been withholding (telling Israel to pay up to us, or else), and say "Ok, now you have the funding to get things done. No more excuses about how it's our fault because we didn't support you." Then, inform the Palestinian Authority and Israel that all aid will be cut off to both their countries in 6 months time unless they have both signed a treaty establishing a permanent border. Also, tell them that aid may be reduced or cut off early to either or both countries as a result of violence. In other words, "You've got enough time to figure this out, and no excuses about why you can't. Do it, or else." We've seen the dire straits the Palestinians are in without foreign aid, and Israel gets enough military aid from the US that it would seriously cramp their budget too. Wouldn't this have a better chance than the current situation? If the US and Europe just had the balls to be firm about demanding peace, I bet it would have an impact. If it didn't... would it really be any worse off? At the very least, the US would save some money.
Well, yes and no. If I'm attacking your civilians while you try to attack only me, that is definitely asymmetric. I guess you're saying you'd rather not dignify the killing of civilians by calling it warfare. I can respect that, but it doesn't mean the term is in no way applicable. You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that two groups of people perpetrating violence against each other isn't warfare.
Although (tongue-in-cheek), if you really want to end the asymmetric warfare/terrorism in the Palestine-Israel conflict, it's not that hard. Just take all that military aid the US currently gives Israel, and give it to the Palestinian Authority instead. I think you'll find that they would stop suicide bombing small groups of civilians pretty quickly, and would start bombing Israeli government buildings. Kinda like how Israel bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry recently.
That's only a joke because the last thing we want to do is put more weapons into that situation. It's serious in the sense that the only reason the Palestinians use suicide bombs against civilians is that when faced with such incredible opposing military strength, there's not much else you can do except roll over and take it. That's why it's called "asymmetric warfare" -- it's caused by an incredible asymmetry in the strength of the opposing forces.
But there's a key aspect of this issue you don't mention -- would you agree that you should not be able to force me not to recognize a same-sex marriage (i.e. do you reject the bans on same-sex marriage)? If you truly support freedom of choice in this matter, it seems to me there would be times where you would need to support my right to recognize a same-sex marriage as long as I don't try to force everyone else to do it too.
In fact, it seems to me that from a neutral libertarian point of view, it should be at least as important to fight the bans on same-sex marriages as it is to fight laws and precendents forcing universal recognition of same-sex marriages. For one thing, there are more bans on same-sex marriages than there are laws supporting them, I'm fairly sure. For another, forced recognition and bans both affect an individual's interaction with the social institution of marriage equally (by legally eliminating the choice of how to respond to a same-sex couple claiming to be married), but the bans have additional, major effects on some people, for instance regarding health insurance. Since the bans seem to have taken more ground in the battle, and the bans have a greater impact, they seem to be the bigger danger.
You didn't mention anything about how others shouldn't be able to force me not to recognize same-sex marriages in your post, which honestly leaves me slightly suspicious as to whether you really do believe in unregulated freedom of choice in this matter or whether you just use that argument to support the fact that you don't want to recognize same-sex marriages. But, simply omitting that part of the issue doesn't necessarily mean anything, so maybe I'm not giving you enough credit. In any case, I'll agree to support your right not to recognize same-sex marriages as long as you agree to support my right to recognize them.